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2. Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness: An introduction (Advances in Consciousness Research)
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A few thoughts-
Command structure works something like this.
U.S. Prez-->SecDef--->Joint Chief of Staff-->various Unified Combatant Commands.
(Technically the Joint Chiefs are not an actual part of the command structure, but they are included these days for administrative reasons).
The commands that will survive your scenario are US Pacific Command. European Command, Africa Command, and Central Command. Africa Command will be of negligible importance. EUCOM will control the 6th fleet and is the nominal commander of all NATO forces. CENTCOM has the 5th fleet but will also have responsibility for getting all of our troops in Afghanistan to... somewhere that is not Afghanistan. PACOM is the player to watch. To get a sense of their scale, here is a quotation from their website:
<blockquote>"U.S. military and civilian personnel assigned to USPACOM number approximately 330,000, or about one-fifth of total U.S. military strength. U.S. Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 180 ships (to include five aircraft carrier strike groups), nearly 2,000 aircraft, and 140,000 Sailors and civilians all dedicated to protecting our mutual security interests. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific possesses about two-thirds of U.S. Marine Corps combat strength, includes two Marine Expeditionary Forces and about 85,000 personnel assigned. U.S. Pacific Air Forces is comprised of approximately 43,000 airmen and more than 435 aircraft. U.S. Army Pacific has more than 60,000 personnel assigned, including five Stryker brigades. Of note, component command personnel numbers include more than 1,200 Special Operations personnel. Department of Defense Civilians employees in the Pacific Command AOR number about 38,000. Additionally, the U.S. Coast Guard, which frequently supports U.S. military forces in the region, has approximately 27,000 personnel in its Pacific Area."</blockquote>
A lot of these are headquartered in California (such as the Third Fleet), but when they are not at port they can wander quite far. (Because of the sequester more are at port now than usual).
My point in all this, however, is that there is a rather strong command structure set in place that would continue to function even if Washington was gone. Indeed, that is part of their design - if communications with DC is cut, PACOM et. al should be able to make the decisions they need to make.
Note: The nuclear arsenal, for what it is worth, is under control of United States Strategic Command, inconveniently - for purposes of surviving a gamma ray burst over America - headquartered in Nebraska.
They would be major players in any scenario like this.
If you want to see where they are at this moment, see this: http://www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/us-naval-update-map-oct-24-2013
EUCOM probably goes with NATO and figures something out there. Guys in CENTCOM and AFRICOM are in a tougher scenario. If you wanted to have fun you could write a Xenophon-esque story of the CENTCOM forces in Afghanistan marching their way to some allied country.
PACOM forces? They stay under PACOM's control. Hawai'i is safe from the blast. It is the last vestige of American civilization left. There is a pretty big secessionist movement here in Hawai'i and I suppose this would give them the chance to restore the monarchy and get that Kingdom of Hawai'i they always wanted. But it is also where PACOM is head-quartered. Even if every single person on the mainland dies, PACOM/Hawai'i still has one of the most powerful military forces on the planet.
There is no reason to think that military commanders would not simply take charge and impose order themselves. Too many historical precedents to count....
Imperial China is not a bad place to see this dynamic in action, though, if only because 'collapse' has happened enough times there that observers have caught the general pattern. Dynasty collapses and all the generals/warlords on the periphery seize power for themselves. Sometimes for bad reasons, other time just to preserve general order. Just Wikipedia "Three Kingdoms Period" or "Five Dynasties Period" or "Warlord Era." Those are just the most famous. Every dynasty not conquered from above has its own 'warlord era' to boast of.
Destruction of America is like the fall of Rome - but much, much, much worse for the entire world. Vaclav Smil's book on why Rome and US should not be compared has some smart thoughts on this. http://www.amazon.com/Why-America-Not-New-Rome/dp/0262195933 In fact, a lot of Vaclav Smil's stuff - Harvesting the Biosphere, Prime Movers of Globalization, Made in America, The Biosphere - might help you with this project. Extremely technical. But if you want to understand the impact America has on the world's ecological, economic, and energetic systems, there is no better author.
first replying to the topic of clarity & purple
didnt know they had a phrase for this:
tho i understand it harms clarity tho:
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it seems overall that many dont like thes kinds of things,
& overall culturally this has been the trend
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i also dont like these kinds of things tho i can understand some of the main reasons why others would think that this is the only and best that certain things could said
tho i should add that i dont consider the scene/piece that poetic/purple cos it could be 1000x more so
tho that's the thing with relative words like 'purple' and such, they're all just relative, and in that way, they do lose 1) clarity & 2) meaning
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Usual term for this is transhumanism. It's used in lots of SF. Best book I've read about it is Mind Engine. It presents both the benefits you mention (immortality, health, productivity) and some dangers (elitism, oppression, rogue AI) and leaves you thinking.
Interesting concept. But there is some suspicion that our brains use quantum processing - at least at some level.
Just pulling a reference from google:
https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Brain-Dynamics-Consciousness-introduction/dp/1556191839
Also, Leonard Susskind has a video where he speculates on this.
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I believe the mechanism theorized is that there are micro-tubules (bucky tubes) that run between brain neurons. Not only could quantum electrical signals traverse these tubes, but it's been theorized that consciousness itself may be a manifestation of quantum harmonics between these tubes. But I'm really going out on limb here. As I understand it, this is more speculation than scientific evidence, at this point in time.
Troika, by Alistar Reynolds is a short story that is somewhat similar to this concept. I highly recommend that you read it.